


Forever

by Kikimay



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Angst, F/F, F/M, Future Fic, Infidelity, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-17
Updated: 2014-05-17
Packaged: 2018-01-25 11:05:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1646372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kikimay/pseuds/Kikimay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>- I can stay in town as long as you want me.<br/>- How’s forever? Does forever work for you?</p><p>Angel finally gets the shanshu. Buffy takes care of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forever

**Author's Note:**

> Translation from the Italian. Unbetead. I hope that the Grammar is fine. Suggestions are welcome.

 

 

  
  
 _\- I can stay in town as long as you want me._  
 _\- How’s forever? Does forever work for you?_  
( BtVS 5.17)  


  
  
  
  
The asphalt was slippery because of the recent snow.  
  
Buffy slowed down and walked closer to the wall to hold herself in case of need. A lady in fur greeted her and she replied with a polite smile. She looked up at the sky; despite everything the day was going to be magnificent, glowing and bright. Hopefully it was an anticipation of a colorful spring, the return of warmth and night parties on the roof.  
  
She changed the position of the bouquet in her arms. Her coat was smelling like white, yellow and red rosebuds.  
  
She crossed the street.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The elevator was still unserviceable.  
  
She ran four flights of stairs and sighed exhausted in front of the door, while searching for the key. The door burst open and she had to get away very quickly.  
  
“Oh shit, B! Another bit and I would have hit your face!”  
  
Buffy took a breath and smiled at Faith. She was wearing a Faith-like leather jacket and a new scar on her lips. Her hair was shorter and unruly.  
  
“Are you going on training?” the Chosen One asked. “Have fun,” she whispered tenderly kissing her lover.  
  
“See you at lunch, right?” She replied.  
  
Buffy shrugged. “I don’t know if I can ...”  
  
“You don’t'”  
  
“Come on!” she tried again more cheerfully. “Try not to be late or the girls will be pissed. Fix the scarf.”  
  
Faith obeyed, slightly annoyed. “You’re living like a nun.”  
  
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m just … kinda busy for now. Plus you know how training the new girls gets on my nerves these days. I’ll see you tonight, okay?”  
  
Faith struggled with the scarf and nodded unwillingly. “Eat my croissant too,” she muttered, taking the car keys and kissing Buffy goodbye.  
  
She didn’t answer. She had gone out only to buy the flowers.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Buffy closed the door and put the roses on a table. She took off her coat and adjusted the clip that was holding her hair back. She looked at her face in the mirror. Without makeup her eyes were almost smaller and surrounded by bags. Her mouth was getting really wrinkly.  
  
She frowned.  
  
She took the flowers and walked into the guest room. “Good morning!” she sang happily.  
  
The man between the sheets groaned and tried to hide his face under the pillow.  
  
Buffy quickly opened the window. “Today is a beautiful day,” she said.  
  
Angel turned. “Good morning,” he said quietly. Sweetly.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
He had came back ten months earlier. Rain-soaked and embarrassed. Buffy felt her eyes shining with unleashed tears. Even Faith was crying.  
  
Then there was a doctor and another doctor and Lorne and a lot of people Buffy didn’t know. They explained; Angel was finally shanshued. He had won his most important battle, for humanity and freedom and inner peace. For death.  
  
Apparently the immune system of a class 1727 boy wasn’t so able to hold up the progress of modern times. A disease that afflicted Liam as a young man was slowly spreading into his newly human body.  
  
The consequences of success.  
  
Buffy spent the entire night sleepless. At dawn she decided to take care of the man she couldn’t have being with more than twenty years before.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Angel slighty smiled. His smile was something strange and sweet on his pale and tired face.  
  
Buffy was still looking at him with desire even if his lips were thinner, his cheekbones sharper and his skin almost livid all the time. Still, he was one of the most beautiful men she had ever seen. Everything about him was charm and eternal youth.  
  
Buffy sat on the bed next to him and lovingly caressed his face. She helped him drink some water and carefully arranged blankets and meds. Angel studied her movements in silence and received a final kiss on the forehead when the process was done.  
  
The Slayer got up to put the roses in the vase.  
  
She always brought him roses. Of any kind and any color. Every week.  
  
“Did you sleep well?”  
  
Angel nodded. “A good sleep, a dreamless one.”  
  
“Good. I called Willow and she seems on top of your later request. She will save those people, you know?”  
  
“I’m glad. Thanks.”  
  
The Slayer perfected the position of a rebel pink budding. “Tomorrow I’ll go in for the new meds …”  
  
“You don’t need to.”  
  
“Don’t be stupid.”  
  
He stared at her in complete silence. So firmly that she felt like a little girl trying to disobey a father’s command.  
  
“Oh, you’re so moronic sometimes!” she snapped. “I don’t even want to hear you pity yourself and going on with the martyr routine!”  
  
“Buffy …”  
  
“Plus I didn’t have my breakfast! I have to go … now!”  
  
She walked out slamming the door. He couldn’t complete his sentence.  
  
  
  
  
  
She came back after thirty minutes with a pouting smile on her lips. Angel laughed.  
  
“I brought you breakfast,” she said. “Did you go to the bathroom? Everything is fine?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Bodily functions checked.  
  
Buffy sat next to Angel. “Promise me you’ll walk with me on the roof afterwards,” she firmly asked.  
  
“I don’t know if I can …”  
  
“I can support you. Now drink your milk.”  
  
  
  
  
  
  
They walked on the roof like lovers.  
  
He was holding a crutch and her in his arms smiling at the fullest. Laughing sometimes. He looked even taller than usual, with his feet anchored to the ground and his eyes close to heaven.  
  
  
  
  
  
She made him lie on the bed. He was moaning for the pain. She adjusted the pillows behind his head and closed his eyes with her fingers.  
  
“It gets more and more exhausting,” he muttered through his clenched teeth.  
  
“It will pass.”  
  
“Yes, when I’m dead.”  
  
“Don’t say that.”  
  
“You know it better than me, Buffy. And it was my prize. I won it. As much as one can escape it, it comes the time when even a centuries-old vampire has to die. I’m happy, though.”  
  
She knew it.  
  
  
  
  
During everlasting autumn afternoons she desperately cried at his bedside, with her face buried on the crotch of his neck. When the pain seemed to transfigure his serious and beautiful features and his hands were clutching and ruining the sheets.  
  
She fired the nurses, who never seemed good enough for him. She wanted Faith and Dawn out of her way. She spent days locked in a dark room with the man she had sent to hell and then found again and then lost again and then ...  
  
She held his hand, gave him his pills and whispered words of comfort that he couldn’t hear.  
  
She stroked his hair sometimes shorter, sometimes longer.  
  
She fell asleep with her mouth pressed against his.  
  
 _If that wasn’t love ..._  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
“You have to stop living your life following the habits of a dying man! I’ve got what I wanted … but you? What are you doing? What are you doing to poor Faith? Cutting yourself out of everything …”  
  
Oh. It was the “poor Faith” speech. Everybody was miserable according to Angel.  
  
She stared at him and tore apart the book she was cleaning. “Fuck!” she snapped. “I’m sorry. Was it even good?”  
  
“It was an essay on free will.”  
  
“Not so good then.”  
  
Angel laughed until his bones made him hiss. “Come closer,” he said.  
  
She sat next to him. “Yes?” she whispered kind of flirty.  
  
Angel raised his head until he could kiss her lips. Satisfied he lay down again. “Tonight meat, huh?” he asked colloquially.  
  
“Meat is good,” she replied, caressing his face and his hair and his hands. She playfully watched their differences: Angel’s hands were big and hers were so small.  
  
She kissed him again and this time with a hint of passion.  
  
Angel frowned.  
  
“It’s stronger than me, you know?” she confessed. “And you are beautiful. More beautiful than anything else in the world.”  
  
“Even like this?”  
  
“Even so. _Forever_.”  
  
“And you’re still my girl,” he whispered amazed.  
  
“Yeah,” she managed to say with a lump in her throat.  
  
Angel took her hand. “Forgive me.”  
  
“For what?”  
  
“Because I shouldn’t have come back here. I’ve always make the same mistake with you.”  
  
She tensed. “Don’t say something like that, please. You can’t imagine how glad …” she stopped for a moment. “I’m glad that you came to me.”  
  
“But I shouldn’t have. You should live your life and I ...”  
  
Buffy shushed him by putting a finger on his lips. “ _I’ve lived a hundred lives,”_ she said. “This one won’t kill me more than the others.”  
  
Angel sighed. “You’re so different from what I thought you were.” The Slayer’s eyes widened in surprise. He continued. “When I saw you the first time you looked much more like … but …”  
  
“Am I worse? Am I better? I grew up. I’m always the same, though. At least I think I’m the same. Things changed.”  
  
He chuckled. “I know. But that’s life, isn’t it? It _always_ changes.”  
  
“I suppose so.”  
  
Angel stroked her hair with trembling fingers. “But I love you. I love you, Buffy.”  
  
Buffy swallowed hard. Cried. Smiled. “I love you too.”  
  
  
  
  
  
  
This time it was complicated. There was the sickness and Faith. There was the knowledge that being together was actually impossible.  
  
Fuck it. It was always complicated.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
She breathlessly pulled away from him. She bit her reddened lips and stared at Angel’s with desire.  
He swallowed hard and let his head fall down on the pillow. There was a new scratch under his chin hidden by the beard. Buffy kissed him with eyes closed.  
  
“We shouldn’t …”  
  
She didn’t answer, too busy with the kissing. Angel felt her fingers on his hair and on the back of his neck.  
  
“We shouldn’t, Buffy. It won’t bring anything good …”  
  
“It doesn’t have to.”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“This moment between us ... _it will remain forever_. Who cares if it won’t lead to anything?”  
  
This time he kissed her with teeth.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
“You will take on your slayer’s duties again. The mission is what matters, right?”  
  
She looked down, irritated, and added parmesan to his pasta.  
  
Angel called her name.  
  
“Here it is,” she said, giving him the place. “Shall I peel you an apple?”  
  
“I didn’t even eat the pasta and you’re ignoring my question. The girls need you. Only you can …”  
  
A fork fell on the floor.  
  
“Fuck!” Buffy cursed biting her tongue. She picked it up and started blowing. She ended up crying like an idiot.  
  
Angel tensed and looked at her with his best “sorry” face.  
  
Buffy covered her eyes with an hand.  
  
“I’m sorry, Buffy.”  
  
“No, that’s all my fault. Eat or it will become an awful mess …”  
  
“I’m sorry,” he insisted.  
  
She opened her eyes sobbing loudly.  
  
Angel held her tight. “Don’t cry, please.”  
  
“I’m going to stop any minute now. It’s just that … I can’t breath … I’m breathless …” she ranted swallowing saliva.  
  
“Breathe. Breathe, my love. It always ends like this between the two of us. I say that I love you and you burst into tears.”  
  
She laughed and then coughed. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened here,” she muttered wiping her face with the back of her hand.  
  
Angel handed her a tissue and looked at her full of pride and love. “I want you to close your eyes,” he said. “You have to start thinking from another point of view. You have to consider that I’ve got what I’ve always wanted. Finally,” he added touching her cheeks. “ _Close your eyes_.”  
  
She obeyed.  
  
It was the fever that took him away.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Buffy became a ghost among other ghosts. She assisted him and sat next to the bed. She talked to him, but Angel was elsewhere. With Connor, gone far too soon, and Cordelia, whom he loved very much. With Dru who was lost somewhere and Spike, his best childe, his most irritating creature.  
Buffy was just another ghost. Passing a wet cloth on his forehead and kissing him many times, reminding him of the difficulties they had faced and defeated.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
“I want to fill the tombstone with white roses. White and red roses. Where there is …”  
  
“Buffy?”  
  
“And I want candles. All sorts of candles, just for him. And … I don’t know, in Ireland they do something in particular?”  
  
Willow remained still and mute, her eyes fixed on an empty bed.  
  
“And please!” Buffy continued rising her voice. “Try something with the idiots downstairs! Remove their tongues or something! Their morning giggles are making me crazy. I think I’ve got a migraine!”  
  
Dawn knocked the door. “Willow, we are alone now …” she murmured.  
  
“Go on. I’m coming.”  
  
Buffy turned away clenching her fists.  
  
“Can we sit down for a moment, Buffy?” Willow offered with her best accommodating tone.  
  
Without an answer she made her friend made sit on the bed. She put her arm around her back and started massaging it gently.  
  
Buffy snapped.  
  
“The problem is that he was _a man_. One of _my men!_ They usually go away …” she muttered catching her breath. Holding back the tears. “... And I love him, dammit! _I still love him!”_ she confessed sobbing. “The problem is that I love him,” she said turning to her friend. “Always.”  
  
Willow hugged her. Then she helped getting her up.  
  
Buffy took a yellow rose, the last rose, and laid it on the pillow.  
  
The door opened suddenly.  
  
It was Faith. Her eyes were smeared with mascara and she was furious.  
  
“Have you finished with the Romeo and Juliet fucking routine?” she asked out loud. “I have endured this shit for a year, you know? Now fuck you. _Fuck you_ , B!”  
  
Willow thightly held Buffy’s hands as they sat down again. Faith lay her head on her lover’s legs and hid her face against her stomach. She cried.  
  
“I won’t leave this house just because here died your so called immortal lover! I don’t want to. I like this house!”  
  
Buffy nodded. “We won’t leave,” she promised, stroking her hair and kissing her.  
  
Faith looked up desperate. “We’ll stay here? For how long?”  
  
“How long as you want to.”  
  
“Forever then. Does forever work for you?”  
  


 

 

 


End file.
